Wednesday, January 29, 2014

This is a ride anywhere bike-with style. The new logo and its unconventional placement were requests o the owner. I think that this outside-the-box decal placement is very cool......wish I had thought of it !

This bike will be comfortable with 700x35 tires or 700x28 with fenders. This is my S-3 Columbus Life mix tubeset. The frame is 3 lb. 15 oz. really light for a frame with the big head tube or the tapered steerer.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

This is my basic single speed setup-Paul's dropouts with the special Swiggco adjustable discmount. The is the way to make a single speed frame with disc brakes and not need sliding or rocking dropouts or and EBB.

So, with no dropout related upcharges this customer had the cash to go for the royal blue downtube panel.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Took me awhile to wrap my head around building this one. I had never built a frame with through-axles. Lucky for me, the Anvil jigs have tooling available for this heavy duty axle system. The rider is 6'9" and at least 265 lbs. The shop that ordered the frame and fork decided that the way to make the bike strong and safe for a rider this size was to go the route you see in the photos.

The unicrown fork has some really stout Reynolds blades and a Paragon tapered steerer that I had to extend a full 6". Yes-this is a really tall frame.

The tubeset is what I would use on a 29er MTB frame-very strong, yet below 6 lbs. I was not trying to build the frame light, it just turned out that way. I put re-enforecments where I thought they were needed.

The front and rear dropouts are from Paragon-probably the only company that has bothered to make such hardware for custom builders. I am very glad that Paragon exists, otherwise I would not be able to build this frame the way the shop requested.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

It isn't often that I get a chance to see another builder's shop, especially if it is out of state. I had the good fortune to see this shop and say hello to a truly great builder, Mark Nobilette. The shop is located about 1/2 hour from where the CX nationals were being held so I borrowed a car and drove down there on an errand for one of our team riders. Turns out the Mark has been building frames for Rivendell and our rider , Mark Abele works at Rivendell.

Here's Mark's frame jig-probably has seen a lot of tubes over the last few decades. I think that Mark started building around 1974.

Here's a manual screw machine for making small parts. A more mechanized version of this would turn out water bottle mounts by the thousands.

Mark Abele surveying the pile of tubing. This shop might look a bit cluttered but it is roomy and better organized than mine.......I'll definitely take note !

This is the current build in the vise , most likely a custom Rivendell.

Here's a detail of the clean and tasteful work that only experience and focus can produce.

I could not resist taking a photo of a Nobilette 'cross bike-looks like a shredder to me.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

This one is now prepped and already on the truck. It is my current aluminum version with a bit more tire room than in the past. This is set up for disc brakes and increasingly I'm finding that more people want this.

The larger head tube will be fittedwith a King inset-7 headset and a tapered steerer carbon fork. This is just like the team frames I am building except for the snazzy candy apple red color-in this case it came out really well.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

This frame will look pretty classy with the matching fork-a painted Enve 2.0 road fork. The headbadge is a silver/copper blend from Jennifer Green. Jen makes headbadges for a lot of builders and I'm proud to carry them.

The dropouts are investment cast stainless-a request from the customer. This one is already boxed up and will go out tomorrow UPS.

This one is bound to be ridden just about anywhere. The big head tube will fit a tapered steerer fork, most likely an Enve. There's a silver Jen Green headbadge that the customer sourced himself. I went with the downtube routing as there's a bit less cable trouble with this routing in climates where there's a lot of rain and sandy soil. There isn't that much rain in Texas but when it rains, look out !

This is a nice sturdy set of tubes-really light thin-walled steel would not be very good where this bike will be headed-lots of rugged miles for sure. The PF-30 BB will be really versatile and can even be run as an EBB if needed.